March 29th, 2011

Zooming around Los Angeles @ 11:53 am

Smithsonian has a nice article on wooden track motorcycle racing, particularly in Los Angeles. It's crazy to think that if you could roll the clock back 90 years, Beverly Hills High School and the Beverly Hills Hotel would turn into the Beverly Hills Speedway. Or a century ago at the Los Angeles Motordrome in Playa del Rey. Or see a spill at Ascot Park in Gardena 70 years ago.

Ascot Park shows up in the original Gone in 60 Seconds, which we watched recently. It's a confused muddle, followed by a gripping 34 minute car chase that is simultaneously ridiculous and all-too-real.

The scene where the Mustang tags a car on the highway and spins into a telephone pole at 100 mph was a real accident. Halicki was badly hurt and filming was stopped while he recovered. According to people on the set, after the mishap the first thing that Halicki said when he regained consciousness was "Did we get coverage?"

(I think that accident is what you see all too briefly at about 0:56 in the trailer.)